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Talk:Thomas Vanderbilt
My last round of edits were reverted, so I'll ask -- what is so wrong with the Picard Family album that it is considered a separate continuity? The album wasn't readable onscreen, but it was seen onscreen, making it canon. Even if that is not sufficient to convince someone of its authenticity, the actual album itself is available to view, having toured in exhibition (could this be considered a licensed work, a licensee charged admission to view it?). How is the contents in question? -- Captain MKB 04:20, March 7, 2010 (UTC) :First off, being a separate continuity doesn't make it "wrong," and I'm not sure why you're implying that it is. :However: :1. The Picard Family Album (PFA) is not a work of licensed fiction in any sense of the term. It is a prop, some of whose contents were never seen onscreen; the existence of the scrapbook is canonical, but its unseen contents are not canonical. As such, I would argue that its information falls outside of Memory Beta's purview. :2. Even if it is accepted as part of Memory Beta's purview, however, it is inconsistent with what the novels have established. Last Full Measure established that the Federation Charter was signed on 12 August 2161; the PFA claims it to have been signed on 11 October. It features a Federation Council that elects Presidents rather than a popular election, as established in A Time for War, A Time for Peace, and it features a Federation Vice President, an office established not to exist by War/Peace 's establishment of the existence of the office of President Pro Tempore. As such, it is clearly not in continuity with the novels and should be marked as such. -- Sci 03:50 7 MAR 2010 UTC ::Why do things only need to be 'marked' if they are in contradiction with the novels? I've never seen anyone put a "novel continuity only" notation next to the 12 August date.. ::Why aren't the two topics treated equally? -- Captain MKB 06:12, March 7, 2010 (UTC) :::I'd be perfectly happy to see someone put a "Novel continuity only" note next to the 12 August date; it simply hadn't occurred to me. But, again, I would argue that the PFA isn't a work of licensed fiction and shouldn't even be included in Memory Beta's mandate. -- Sci 05:28 7 MAR 2010 UTC So, this character being a President of the Federation has never been established either on-screen in a canon production, or in text in a licensed tie-in? Then why are we claiming it to be so? Until we have a source giving that information we shouldn't be making this claim. This is comparable to Jonathan Archer's death as described in the unseen on-screen portion of his biography from "In a Mirror, Darkly"; an interesting background note, but surely not something we can use as a source. --8of5 12:55, March 7, 2010 (UTC) :Well, the album was visible onscreen in part, and was displayed as a whole at Star Trek: The Experience. STE was a licensee of the Star Trek name and this is information from it, and bits of the album were even visible in canon, and the album was designed for a canon production. Sounds licensed to me... -- Captain MKB 15:44, March 7, 2010 (UTC) ::So the parts of the album seen on-screen would be the things we can consider canon. I think you're really pushing at our range of acceptable sources wanting to use Star Trek: The Experience as a whole as a source for in-universe information (the narratives within the individual experiences/rides/thingies are another matter) - Bare in mind Memory Beta does not generally cover all licensed Star Trek things, or else we'd have articles about launch boxes, and rows in the character infoboxes noting how many points of articulation they have! A prop exhibited in a real-world situation is a really fuzzy source; are we also to accept some phasers have no functioning buttons and are made of foam? And that starships are in fact about a meter long and have a metal pole coming out the bottom? Any real world source (book, DVD feature, exhibition, deleted scene) can help us illustrate and expand on an article, and provide interesting background information, but I think it's pushing it to use those sort of sources for in-universe fact. --8of5 17:41, March 7, 2010 (UTC) :Well, I guess I would like to push at the issue to see how much we could incorporate. We wouldn't be noting the exhibits foam tricorders being made out of foam, but if they had a decal saying they were "Model XVIII", that would be information to note. In some cases, that info can be found in a reference book. For example the TNG 'Continuing Mission' list shows a list of Starbase 32 personnel -- it was an arti piece on the wall in 'Violations' -- obviously we couldn't read it onscreen, but the book gets the information to us that was an officer there. The book is an extreme example because it was not completely republished (like the SB32 list), but displayed, i think that might be what you're calling into question :i don't really understand your arguments on noting the behind-the-scenes info like type of modeling foam used on the props or the scale of the models -- if we are looking at this from an 'in-universe' POV, we wouldn't see things like that 'in-universe' .. however we would, from 'in-universe' POV, see the registry number on the Playmates Toy version of some ship, and the names of people on Starbase 32. -- Captain MKB 19:04, March 7, 2010 (UTC) I don't think it's reasonable to argue that the PFA is a work of licensed fiction because it was exhibited at Star Trek: The Experience. It was a prop being displayed, not a story being sold; people weren't paying to read the PFA, they were paying to enter The Experience 's grounds. Further, it wasn't created by any licensees -- it was written by someone from the Paramount props department for use on a film that never actually displayed the "It's Federation Day!" article that Vanderbilt is taken from. That doesn't mean that Vanderbilt shouldn't be included in Memory Beta -- he's appeared in Beneath the Raptor's Wings now, and we know that there's a room in the Palais named after him. But until he's mentioned or depicted as a Federation President in a novel, short story, role playing game, video game, or other form of licensed fiction, I think that the reference to him being Federation President should be moved to a background note and that he should be removed from the "Federation Presidents" template. -- Sci 18:58 7 MAR 2010 UTC :I think I would draw the line at the squint test; if a prop is shown on screen then I think the details must be at least a little legible; if you have a for example a screen of information shown on screen and can sort of read it, and then use a clearer photo of a prop just to clarify exactly what you're seeing (but can see it on screen, it's just easier to see on the prop), I think that's fine. The Starbase 32 list is just beyond that test for me, if you look at it in the episode (assuming Trekcore's screencap's show the only view of it?) nothing on it is remotely legible, so I don't think it's a correct use of behind the scenes images to clarify this, it's too unclear on the screen; effectively that list is not visible in the episode, it's just white fuzz, could be anything. The Picard album is even further from this, nothing but a few photos from it were seen on-screen, at all. So I agree with Sci, Vanderbilt as president should be background info only. --8of5 14:13, March 11, 2010 (UTC) :I'll accept that, as the page of the 'Federation Day' article was not visible on screen. Thanks to all for discussing it here. :However, on the separate discussion of the Starbase 32 list, I wholly disagree, as I've performed the 'squint test' and gotten better results -- I do still intend to incorporate that material as I did on Memory Alpha. -- Captain MKB 14:48, March 11, 2010 (UTC) If nobody objects, since we seem to have developed a consensus here, I'm going to edit the article to have the references to Vanderbilt serving as Federation President moved to the background section. -- Sci 08:11 12 MAR 2010 UTC ::::I've just read this article and the talk page, noticing that he finally get his presidency in novels. Both side has good arguments for considering PFA a valid resource or not (I personally would rather consider it as a non-canon partly-licenced valid resource but I'm just a casual user ;) ), but that's not the point of my comment. My real point is : Is it really so inconsistent ? ::::Are the "Federation Charter" (LFM, 12th August) and "Federation Constitution" (PFA, 11th October) clearly the same legal document ? If not, that could explain many divergences, the first establishing rights among members and purpose of the alliance (real birth of UFP, popular event featuring many attendees), and the second establishing practical organisation (official birth, less interesting event with only 5 ambassadors signing). ::::I rather disagree with "It features a Federation Council that elects Presidents rather than a popular election". On a practical side, I would say that such a galactic election would take months (even more) to be prepared (gather, exploit and secure all databases from each member, organise elections, electoral campaigns, collect votes, ...). During this time, someone must be in charge, so the fact that the first President is elected by the Concil rather than a popular election is rather logical (examples in earth history probably exist), his first duties being the organisation of elections in x months/years (where he could also be candidate and win). ::::For the "Vice President", I would say that such a title could have existed at some point but no longer has influence or was completely abandoned soon after for whatever reasons. ::::Another point, if Charter and Constitution are clearly the same, could that be two alternate universes with minor divergences (results of Temporal Cold War or whatever), as the author obviously was inspired by PFA when choosing the President's name. - From Cardassia with pain (talk) 18:21, December 18, 2013 (UTC)